Category Archives: Darren O'Day

1) I start with the number of runs allowed by each pitcher, and the number of innings that guy pitched.

2) I modify the number of runs allowed to account for any bias based on the pitcher’s home park.

3) I modify the number of runs allowed based on my defensive rating system for teams and players because if you have Seattle’s team defense behind you, you are less likely to allow a run than if you had the Royals defense behind you.

I was surprised that Buchholz saved more runs, but he also had a remarkable ERA pitching in Fenway. Like #3 Jon Lester. Brian Duensing made 13 starts when Minnesota needed them, and his overall contributions were also impressive. Not sure if he has a 200 inning season in him, but at this rate, he would have led the league in runs saved. Among the returners from last year, Fernandez, Lester, and Sabathia…

Three Rangers in the top ten – which helps explain how they controlled the division if the offense could just get a lead through five or six innings. This is the second year I have made the list – and Bailey, Rivera, O’Day, and Thornton all returned to the list.

Shields cleared 50 because he pitched 200 innings, had a solid defense behind him, and kept serving up homers. The Rays stuck with him all season and will be giving him another shot in 2011. I don’t think he’ll be this bad… The worst pitcher, though, was Rowland-Smith. He pitched just 109 innings, so essentially he gave up a run more than the average pitcher every other inning. Ouch.

Earlier this week, I posted my list of the top pitchers in the NL and explained my methods. Just as a recap, here’s what I am trying to do:

1) I start with the number of runs allowed by each pitcher, and the number of innings that guy pitched.

2) I modify the number of runs allowed to account for any bias based on the pitcher’s home park.

3) I modify the number of runs allowed based on my defensive rating system for teams and players because if you have Seattle’s team defense behind you, you are less likely to allow a run than if you had the Royals defense behind you. We’ll get into this in more detail when we hand out defensive awards next week.

Then, I compare what an average pitcher would have done with what that pitcher did – and come up with a “runs saved” or “extra runs allowed” ranking. Nobody saved his team more runs than did Zack Greinke last year. Zack Greinke had a really low ERA over more than 220 innings despite pitching in a park that helps hitters a little bit and having a rather poor defense behind him. As such, his season is the best season I have tracked since I started doing this in 2005.

In fact, it’s not even close – Greinke had as good a season as we’ve seen by a pitcher in a long, long time. Imagine if he had done this for 40 starts instead of 33, with a team like Seattle. He MIGHT have had an ERA around 1.70 and a won-loss record of something like 27 – 4. From this, you can see that Halliday instead of Cliff Lee will be a slight step up for Philadelphia and would have been a more serious contender for the Cy Young Award (in my book) had not Greinke been more dominating.

Another thing of interest – four relievers were good enough to sneak onto the list of pitcher saving his team more than 20 runs, led by Andrew Bailey. Let’s use that to show the list of the top relievers in the AL last year.

A couple of things – usually the top guys are middle relievers or set up men with great ERAs in 70 innings. There are a couple here – Thorton, Wuertz, and Oliver for example. Still – the top four guys were KILLER closers in 2009.

If you had Andy Sonnestine on your fantasy team last year, you didn’t read my Tampa Rays Team Profile that pointed out that many of the Rays pitchers weren’t as good as you thought because the team defense in 2008 was amazingly good. In 2009, Bartlett was hurt, and Upton struggled, and Aki Iwamura went down, and Carlos Pena looked a little older (and then left to an injury). Sonnestine may throw strikes, but they sure do get hit a lot.

Hopefully, Fausto Carmona and Chien-Ming Wang can figure things out. Two years ago, these guys won nearly 40 games combined – and now they are #2 and #3 on the wrong list.

And, if you are scrolling down to the NL List, note that the list contained a bunch of Brewer and Padre pitchers. In the AL, only Seattle doubled up by having two guys get pounded around – bad pitching was more evenly distributed…